When you build mystery in a film, there is an important balance between drawing in your audience with questions and never showing your hand too early. You navigate with the cinematic equivalent of a poker face, biding time for the right moment to satisfy the questions of your audience. Red Circle, directed by Akay Mason, is unsure of its mystery and therefore plays its cards awkwardly and too early. The film unravels the story of Fikayo Holloway, a stubborn, bright-eyed journalist from a wealthy family who begins to probe into an organised crime ring whose crimes have begun to hunt close to home.
What’s left in the path of this unsurety is a tangle of ideas that never quite come together. The execution of the different moving parts of the film always leave you wanting more because there are often too many things going on. None of the story’s interpersonal seeds fully bloom. FK and Venita’s (played by Omowunmi Dada) friendship is slightly underdeveloped, the father daughter relationship between FK and her dad (Femi Branch) never finds sure footing, the cult of the Red Circle is only ever scary through moments of expository dialogue and never in presence while all of FK’s sexual and romantic relationships are threadbare. These all culminate in a twist that is unsatisfactory and an obvious set up for a sequel.
The film continues to unsatisfy in the acting department with many of the actors never fully conveying the weight of their roles. Folu Storms (Crime and Justice Lagos) is adequate as a Nigerian who hasn’t lived in Nigeria a lot; she sometimes falters but is able to rise to key emotional points in the film, one being where she has to speak to Venita’s mother. The rest of the bloated cast don’t have enough material or time to make any kind of impact but a few try. Lateef Adedimeji’s Oshisco is vibrant as the gang leader, and William Benson (A Green Fever) is barely present but reminds you why he’s an expert of supporting roles; Tobi Bakre (Gangs of Lagos) is the sexy detective Kalu whose rivalry with a loser-ish Timini Egbuson (Reel love) character, Mustapha, for FK’s love forms the romantic core of the film. The cast does more to bog the film down than keep it moving, we don’t spend a lot of time with anybody so nothing really sticks for whatever stakes are being raised.
This spills into the thematic forays of the film. At its core it seems to be a story about a father’s love for his strong-headed daughter but the film seems averse to simplicity, packing more and more into its runtime till it’s bursting at its seams. It castrates itself of any impact and struggles to reconcile itself comfortably, so it ends up doing too much and not enough. The film sets up its story beats in appropriate but too obvious ways. You see the ways the different story parallels will collide but the collisions lack any impact. When the two gangs at the climax of the film clash as a result of Fikayo’s disappearance, it feels incomplete and devoid of the exhilarating reveal of a climax. The most interesting thing about Red Circle—the peculiar relationship between the Holloway parents—is left for the final minutes and is interrupted by the film’s ending.
Red Circle takes its titular colour very seriously, putting red into scenes via costuming, production design and colour grading. It often veered into heavy-handedness with the contrast often too high and the red deployed in ways that distract instead of complement the story. This problem also occurs with its music. It seems the film doesn’t believe in the ability of its actors and the power of silence so every moment is distractingly soundtracked with no moments to breathe. The direction, on the other hand, is too reserved. The shots (cinematography by Nora Awolowo) are adequate but when it calls for sophistication it falls short. The fight scene at the climax is awkward in its choreography and never feels dynamic enough to carry the final moments of a film like this.
Written by Abdul Tijani-Ahmed (Brotherhood), Red Circle throws many things at the wall hoping they all stick. Its strength lies in the awareness of what it wants to do. It follows the path of earlier Nollywood thrillers like King of Boys but lacks the focus that makes them work. The film has a sense of self but unfortunately in the execution of this vision we get a scattered mystery thriller that is unaware of control, tension and payoff so we leave with a film that promises more than it delivers.
Red Circle premiered in cinemas June 6.
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Side Musings
- There is a juxtaposition of two scenes in this film that reminds me of Queen and Slim and not in any good way.
- The importation of Twitter discourse into a small scene in this film could have been executed with way more finesse.
- If you dress like FK to work everyday, you have no choice than to be excellent at your job, I’m sorry.
- The shirt with math equations that Shamz Garuba wears at the end of this film was so funny to me.
